"Why?"

"If I told you that, then I would have to kill you," she replied. "Don't worry your pretty head about it, Treb."

"Where-what happened to the rest?"

"Ah, well, there's the pity. Some pretty good people just died for you."

He tried to understand that. "How many, traitor? How many of my people did you kill?"

"Well, unless you still count me-I'm thinking you don't-I would have to say everyone."

"Everyone?"

"Yep. Even little Dario." She licked juice from her fingers.

"He's just a boy!"

"Not anymore. Graduated with the rest of them."

"Why?" he sobbed. His eyes stung with tears.

"Again, not telling. A little mystery, remember? Like your bird here." She smiled. "How does it work?"

"I'm going to kill you!" he screamed. "You hear me?"

He lifted his head to direct his shout to the strangers. "Did she tell you who I am? Do you know what you've done?"

Incredibly, they laughed.

"All right," Radhasa said. "Break's over. Get him horsed, fellows, and let's move along."

He tried to fight, but his head was ringing and his limbs were sapped of energy, but most of all he couldn't concentrate, couldn't get his mind to stand still. What was happening? This didn't happen, not to him. How could all of his friends be dead?

The horse started forward, and, slung over its back, he watched the wheel ruts in the road.

She was lying, of course. Gulan and the rest were probably tracking them. Some of them probably were dead, but most of them must have made it. He'd never lost more than three of his personal guard in one battle anywhere, including the Battle of Blinker Creek.

So she was lying, and they were coming. He just had to stay alive until they found him.

How long had he been out? Where were they?

The immediate answer to that last was that they were on a hunting trail of some sort, surrounded by massive oak and ash trees. The land rolled a bit, so it was a good guess they weren't in the Niben Valley anymore, which meant that he must have been unconscious for at least a few days.

His best guess was that they were somewhere in the West Weald, and by the sun, traveling mostly south.

So where were they going?

He looked to Radhasa, riding slightly ahead of him.

"You said you were supposed to kill me," he croaked. "Why didn't you?"

"Because I'm going to sell you," she replied. "I know a certain very eccentric Khajiit who collects people like you. He'll pay more than ten times what I was offered to kill you. So we're off to Elsweyr. Think of it as a holiday. A really, really long holiday that will be no fun at all."

"Radhasa," he said, "that's insane. People know what I look like. Someone between here and there is going to recognize me."

"You haven't seen your face since I whacked it," she replied. "Looks a little different at the moment. And we'll keep the bandages on. Once we get you where you're going, there's going to be a real limited selection of people you're likely to meet, and it won't matter to any of them who you are."

"My father," he said. "He'd pay more yet to get me back. Have you thought of that?"

"He might," she agreed. "But I don't think I would survive that. Too many resources at his disposal, too many ways to trap us."

"Those resources are bent on you already."

"No, not anytime soon, I think."

"When he finds the bodies-"

"Don't worry about that," she said. "It's covered." She chuckled.

"What are you laughing about?"

"Good thing you don't like being addressed as 'Prince,'" she replied. "Because you're never going to hear anyone call you that again."

She snapped her reins and broke into a trot. His horse, leaded to hers, followed suit.

FOUR.

The day after talking with Attrebus, Annaig felt energized, despite the lack of sleep. She went early to her work archiving the plants, animals, and minerals that appeared on her table every morning. She surveyed what was before her for a moment, then glanced up at the cabinets and drawers that climbed the wall to the ceiling.

"Luc," she said quietly.

The hob peered out of the empty cabinet it habitually slept in.

"Luc," it echoed.

"Luc, you know what's in all of those cabinets up there?"

"Luc knows."

"Do you find them by name?"

"If Luc has name."

"And if you don't have the name?" she pressed.

"Then describe-color, taste, smell."

"I see."

She thought about that for a moment, and then got some of the eucalyptus distillation they had used before.

"Smell this, Luc."

The creature wrinkled its wide nostrils at it.

"I don't know the name of what I'm looking for, but it is black and smells a bit like this. I want you to search the cabinets and bring me anything that fits that description, one container at a time."

"Yes, Luc find."

He bounded off, and Annaig took a deep breath. She hadn't dared instruct the beast to bring things only when she was alone; it could tell Qijne, and that would raise questions.

Glim had been right about one thing-she needed to re-create the elixir that had allowed them to fly here. Once Attrebus was near, it might be the only way to reach him. In any case, she needed options. Being able to fly would be a big one.

She set to work on what was before her-arrowroot, silk leeches, and cypress needles. Luc brought her a bottle. She sniffed it, and got an intensely stringent, herbal, minty smell.

"Not that one," she said.

Luc bounded back off.

She remembered the sound of the prince's voice. He'd believed her, hadn't he? A prince. And he had talked to her like she was important. She'd always known that was how it would be, if they met, but to have it actually happen ...

"You're awfully cheerful for a dead woman," Slyr commented from just behind her.

Annaig jumped about a foot, her heart racing. "It's the lack of sleep," she said. "Makes me giddy." She lifted her pen and scribbled a few notes regarding the willow bark on the table in front of her.

"I need you."

"That's nice to hear," Annaig replied. "But this is my time for cataloging. Remember?"

"Yes, well that was before we were put in charge if Lord Ghol's victuals," she snapped.

Annaig shrugged. "If you think you can talk Qijne into releasing me from this duty, I won't argue."

"You're only saying that because you know I wouldn't dare."

"That's true," Annaig replied. "On the other hand, Lord Ghol is bored, yes? We need something new, and that's likely to come from these things."

"Yes, well, Oorol was using the ingredients you identified, and it didn't help him."

"That's because he didn't understand them," she said. "Any more than you do."

Slyr stiffened, and for a moment Annaig thought she had gone too far, but then the other woman relaxed. "You're right. That's why I need you. How often are you going to make me repeat it?"

"I'm in this, too."

"She won't kill you," Slyr replied. "She needs you."

"She's insane," Annaig said. "You can't use logic to predict Qijne."

Slyr chuckled bitterly. "You've a big mouth," she said. "You may be right, but she's not entirely unpredictable-if she hears you said anything like that-"

"She won't," Annaig said simply.

Slyr stepped back. "Really, you looked beaten and ready for the sump last night. Now you're full of sliwv. What happened last night? Did you cozy up to someone? Pafrex, maybe?"

"Pafrex? The bumpy fellow with quills?"

"Or maybe you've trained your hob ... unconventionally?"

"Okay, that's disgusting," Annaig said.

"Disgust," Luc chimed in. "Disgust is what?"

Annaig felt a sudden flush. The hob was holding out a bottle of something black toward her.

"Just put that down, Luc," she said. "Forget that and fetch me that snake over there," she said.

"Luc!" the hob replied, bounding across the huge table to retrieve the viper she indicated.

Slyr was frowning down at her. Annaig couldn't tell if it had anything to do with the bottle.

"Look," Annaig said, "I am helping you. I've an idea."

"And what is that?" Slyr demanded.

Annaig lifted the serpent carefully, behind the head, even though it was as stiff as a rod. Most of the animals came like this-not dead, but sort of paralyzed, frozen even though they weren't cold. Their hearts didn't beat and they didn't age. They had to be released from that state by a rod Qijne carried. Still, with something this deadly, it was hard for her to trust a spell she didn't understand.

"The Argonians call this a moon-adder," Annaig explained. "When it bites, it injects venom that-in most beings-is almost instantly fatal. Argonians, however, can survive it, and in fact sometimes seek the venom out."

"Why would they do that?"

"It provides them daril, which means something like 'seeing everything in ecstasy.'"

"Ah. It is a drug, then. We have many of those, but they are not so much in fashion. Besides, we don't want to poison Ghol."

"No, no. I'm sure that would be bad. The venom is just a starting point. From what Glim told me, daril unfolds in stages, no stage like the last, and it confuses the senses. You see sounds, hear tastes, smell sights."

"Again, we have such drugs."

"The venom is transformed by a certain agent in Argonian blood-"

"If this is another attempt to find out where your friend is, I can only reiterate that not even Qijne knows where he is-or even has the ability to discover it."